Why The F-22 Is Essential to American Defense

The Wall Street Journal has a great little article by General Merrill McPeak (remember that name; it’ll be important later):

For high-end conventional war we’ve built an Air Force that, for now, is virtually unbeatable. When Saddam Hussein tried us on for size in the early-1990s, the ground war was a four-day walkover that followed the initial 39 days of aerial combat.

The future air combat capabilities we should build are based on the F-22, a stealthy, fast, maneuverable fighter that is unmatched by any known or projected combat aircraft. But the F-22’s production run may soon come to an end at just 187 planes, well short of establishing the fleet size we need. After all, it’s expensive, and getting more so as the number contemplated has been repeatedly reduced. In an argument they seem to think makes sense, critics say the aircraft has no worthy opponent—as if we want to create forces that do have peer competitors.

It’s been more than half a century since any American soldier or Marine has been killed, or even wounded, by hostile aircraft, a period roughly coincident with the existence of the Air Force as a separate service. Our guys on the ground had hard work to do, but when they looked up, they saw only friendly skies.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why we should wish to change this.

Gen. McPeak (ret.), Air Force chief of staff from 1990 to 1994, was a national co-chair of Obama for President.

It’s a good article, and i’d encourage you to go read it yourself. It’s not too long, and quite good.

But did you see that last line? Gen. McPeak . . . was a national co-chair of Obama for President

As Bruce Willis said in the original Die Hard movie, “Welcome to the Party, Pal!” Are you surprised that a Democrap get elected to the White House and immediately wants to cut defense? Perhaps you can name for me the last Democrap who didn’t want to cut defense? President Johnson in the midst of the Vietnam War, perhaps?